Member Spotlight: Q&A with Boston Institute of Biotechnology

Dec 01, 2017

Every month, MassBio spotlights a member company and the great work they’re doing to advance the life sciences industry and support the patients we serve. This month we spoke with Dr. Peng Jiao, founder, president & CEO of the Boston Institute of Biotechnology (BIB), who has more than 25 years’ experience in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical fields. He has brought more than 8 products, including small molecules and protein products, from R&D labs to commercial production, and has extensive experience in taking the lead to build up state-of-the-art biomanufacturing facilities.

Tell us about BIB and your current initiatives.

Boston Institute of Biotechnology is a contract research & development organization (CRDO) providing high standard services to biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Currently BIB also extends its service to contract manufacturing (CDMO). BIB is a trustable partner and devoted to building up long term strategic collaborations with our clients.

For R&D services, the organization has expertise on both mammalian cell and microbial fermentation. BIB provides full spectrum process solutions to biotech and biopharmaceutical customers.  Our services include cell line development, cell culture/fermentation, protein purification and analytical development. In addition, our extensive experience on process characterization helps our customers get the greenlight from the FDA, shortening their timeline and cutting overall costs. Overall, your particular project needs can always fit within our broad range of R&D services.

For manufacturing services, we have a 200L microbial fermentation GMP facility with fill-and-finish capacity. We are also building up a 2000L disposal mammalian cell cGMP facility that shall be ready for our customers in Q2 2019.

How do BIB’s activities help patients now and into the future?

In recent years and looking towards the future, more and more virtual biotech start-ups are being established.  These startup companies have their own unique discovery platforms or leading drug candidates, however, they do not have the expertise and capability for process development and manufacturing. BIB can help these companies to quickly build up a robust bioprocess and speed up their drug commercialization, which in turn helps patients access new drugs in a much shorter period of time.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the life sciences industry today?

Drug manufacturers used to look for increased product yield and large production scale to reduce the drug cost. However, with the more recent personalized therapies such as Car-T becoming successful, new process development and manufacturing models are needed in order to fit those requirements. Small scale, highly personalized, localized or bed-side preparation for fast turn-around time is becoming increasingly important. Other challenges around this topic include the increased related regulations and standards.

What’s next for your organization / what are you focused on in the coming year?

BIB has been devoted to the next generation (advanced) bioporecess development and biomanufacturing technologies. Our team is eager to work with more biotech companies, especially small to mid-size companies, to help them accelerate the commercialization of their products to support those patients in need.

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